“Shut up, you fuck. I can’t believe you won’t even let me be mad at you. I hate your ass.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m a fuckup. I know it. You think I don’t know it. But we had a good thing. I know you felt it. I know you did.” Henry held on to the top of his head like he was being arrested.
“Why are you here? Nothing ties me to you. Nothing at all. I can’t wait to never see you again.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“I’m so glad, Henry,” Ava said.
“Look, Ava,” Henry said as he riffled through his pockets. “I brought my paycheck. I want you to have it. I’ll move out. We can still keep talking. This doesn’t have to be over. I know what I did.” Henry took out his pay envelope full of bills and held it out for Ava to come get it. Ava rushed to Henry, greedily took the money out of the envelope, and threw it up into the air. The three of them watched the money, too little money, float onto the ground.
“You are so funny, Henry. You don’t even realize how hilarious,” Ava said. “You think I care about your pitiful little money?”
“Okay, this is enough, Henry. You need to leave,” Jay said. “Let’s go, man.”
“I brought a gun,” Henry said and did his best to ignore Jay. If he didn’t acknowledge him then he and Ava could work it all out. “Do you believe that? I brought a gun with me,” Henry said as he pulled out the gun from his pocket and held it on his pants.
“Oh my god! I never thought I would hate you Henry. What a shitass you are,” Ava said as she turned around to walk back into the house.
“Ava! Ava! Come back.” Henry wasn’t sure what he expected from Ava or what the proper reaction should have been, but he never thought she’d be furious. It didn’t occur to him that she might just walk away. He’d miscalculated everything. Again.
“Baby, baby, I’m not trying to scare you. I’d never hurt you. Never. I swear to God,” Henry said. “I don’t have any more choices.”
Ava stopped and turned around to face Henry. “I am walking in that house and you are getting the hell out of my sight. Don’t you think you’ve hurt me enough?”
“I do,” Henry said and put the gun to his head.
“Henry! Stop it!” Ava stared at Henry like she wasn’t entirely sure who he was. It only then occurred to her to be afraid. “Stop it,” she said with more calmness than she thought possible. “Nobody gets what they want.”
“Give me the gun, Henry.” Jay walked toward Henry’s.
Jay was too close, Henry could not ignore him any longer. He lowered the gun to his pants, thought better of it, and placed the gun on his temple and pulled the trigger.
“Henry!” Ava screamed
Jay’s father, Frank Ferguson, threw plates to the floor, the crash of them loud enough to bring the children into the kitchen. Get back in your room, his father yelled. His sister fled, but Jay waited in the hall. He was not a child. He imagined that he knocked his father to the floor, that he took his father’s beating while his mother ran. Or maybe, he whisked his mother out of the yard and out of the house and into a future. He and his mother in the car on the way anywhere else. But Jay had not moved from the hall. He did not see but he heard his father’s booming voice, his mother’s protests, their two voices strained and taut, coiled together like wires, both of them on the verge of tears. He had never heard a gunshot before. A country boy like him but he could not remember ever hearing the sound of a handgun. He flinched but he did not move. He knew without question what had transpired out in their poor people’s yard. At what felt like the very same moment he heard the boom from the gun he heard his father’s noisy sobbing, his screaming so loud everyone on the street came out to witness it. “Donna, please get up! Please baby, get up!”
Jay waited for the noise, the boom. There had been a click, but no other sound. Wasn’t there supposed to be sound? The gun didn’t go off.
“Henry? Henry?” Ava asked like she expected him to have an explanation.
Henry stood in place comically holding the gun to his head. He looked more surprised than anybody. Before he could gather his senses, Jay swatted the gun from Henry’s hand and banged his head repeatedly against the hood of the car.
“Stop it JJ, stop it!” Ava screamed.
Jay didn’t hear Ava screaming until her felt her hands on him pulling him away from Henry.
Jay backed away from the car. He had not meant to hurt him, but he’d grabbed him before he knew what he was doing. Ava put her hands on Henry’s forehead to staunch the blood trickling through his hair and down his face. “Take off your shirt,” she yelled to Henry who pulled the shirt over his head like an obedient child.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ava screamed at Henry through her tears. “I hate your fucking guts.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. Everything got away from me.” Henry said.
“Don’t,” Ava said and grabbed his shoulders, squeezed until her fingers hurt. “Don’t say one more word, Henry. I won’t be able to take it if you say another word.” Lines of blood slid down Henry’s cheeks.
“Don’t be cruel to me, Henry,” she said. “Not another word. Get in the car.” Ava pointed Henry to the passenger seat in Henry’s car.
Jay checked the chamber of the gun. There were bullets there, but none of them had emerged. He tossed the gun into the woods. “Ava, please stay here,” Jay said, his hands on the driver’s door.
Ava hesitated for a moment. The resignation on Jay’s face almost made her stop and return inside with him. “I’ll be back. I’ll take him and I’ll be back.”
“I’ll go, Ava. You stay here.” But Ava had already started the engine, a mournful sound.
Jay did not turn around as he walked the muddy steps to his beautiful empty house.
Ava and Henry drove the few miles down Brushy Mountain Road and to the house where they lived their lives together, where Sylvia waited at the kitchen table for them to arrive.